Young people 'no longer honored to be poor'

BEIJING — Like most young Chinese people of her generation, He Wei grew up in a hutong, a maze of narrow streets and alleys lined by tiny residences and leading to a central courtyard.

"You felt really close to your neighbors," she says. "We looked out for each other, helped each other. But we didn't have basic facilities. If we wanted a shower, we'd walk to a public place. And about 20 families shared one Eastern-style toilet in the courtyard.

"At rush hour, maybe 20 people would be in line to use that toilet."

Her parents never made more than 200 yuan a month at their jobs. "That's $25," she says. "But we only paid $5 a year to the government in rent. Our health insurance was paid. So was our education. And food was very cheap. We used to eat a lot of Chinese cabbage."

He Wei lived with her parents, sister and grandfather in a two-room house in the hutong.

"My parents were poor. But back then it was an honor to be poor. They liked the hutong. It was where their friends were. They thought they were the luckiest people in the world.

"They wouldn't want to change with anyone."

But life has changed dramatically for He Wei, her parents and many others in Beijing and Shanghai, cities at the forefront of China's current cultural revolution.

He Wei, now 28, even answers to a different name in her job as a tour guide for Viking River Cruises. As is common with Chinese professionals who interact with outsiders, she has adopted a Western name. I know her as Jamye.

One of several guides on our nine-day tour, she is open to objective discussion of Chinese lifestyles and traditions. For first-time visitors, this candor by Jamye and other guides can easily offset the main drawback of group tours, the lack of flexibility to improvise. We shared insight into our diverse cultures during conversations in Beijing, Xi'an and Shanghai and along the Yangtze River.

Unmarried, Jamye still lives with her parents. But not in the hutong. The hutongs — which housed half of Beijing's 12 million residents at the start of this decade — are being demolished one after another as the city spruces up for the 2008 Olympics. Some older residents cling to their roots, and curious Westerners explore the remaining hutongs by pedicab as part of organized tours. But they won't find Jamye or other ambitious young Chinese in the hutongs.

"We are no longer honored to be poor," Jamye says. "We have an apartment in a high-rise. We have 1,000 square feet. We have three bedrooms, a living room and two bathrooms.

"We have Western toilets.

"And I never eat cabbage."

Choice and no choice

The changes in China over the past 20 to 30 years have been immense, says Jamye, who was born in 1978, the second of two children.

"It was early in 1978," she says, "and that's important, because later that year the government adopted a one-child-per-family policy. It's still in effect."

That same year the government initiated what Jamye refers to as an open-door policy. "Until then, we couldn't own property," she says. "We couldn't start our own business. Almost everybody worked for the government, mostly in factories. You had no choice."

Like her parents, Jamye was assigned a job upon completion of her formal education. But after five years, she was on her own. "We have choices now, but we also have responsibilities," she says. "There is more pressure for young people. If you don't work hard today, you may be out on the street tomorrow."

Continuing change

While an upgrade from the hutong, apartment life isn't necessarily luxurious. The summers are hot, and they don't have air conditioning.

"We have elevators," Jamye says, considering herself fortunate. "Many buildings don't, or the elevators work only at certain times. It's difficult for older people. We still have 9 million bicycles in Beijing, and some older people have to walk up 20 floors with their bicycles."

Crime has gone up, too, she says.

"In the hutong, we never locked our doors. Why would we? There was nothing to steal. All people had was a sewing machine for the ladies, a bicycle so we could get to work and a watch so we could get to work on time."

Other changes swirl about Jamye and her peers.

"The biggest thing now is that we have to buy health insurance," she says.

Many young people, especially women, now stay single into their 30s. "That would have been impossible for my parents," Jamye says. "They were supposed to be married before age 25."

And as more Westerners travel to China — a country expected to become the world's tourism leader by 2020, Jamye's generation has a growing interest in foreign cultures. Only 29 million residents of mainland China traveled abroad in 2004, according to the World Tourism Organization, but projections are that the number will more than triple in 15 years.

"Now mostly the young people travel, people in their 30s and 40s," Jamye says. "They have the money, and they have a different outlook on life. Older people think it's crazy to spend that much money traveling."

Jamye listens to our music, watches our movies and TV shows, embraces our pop-culture icons. But she has never been to the Americas. "To get to the States is very hard, almost impossible," she says.

She hopes that will change, too. In the meantime, her parents struggle to adjust at home.

"They miss the old life," Jamye says. "They miss the hutong. They didn't know anything else. But I want them to have a good life. Confucius said you have a responsibility to take care of your parents, and the Chinese still believe in that philosophy."